Decision near on U.S. bid for 2016 Games

Decision day near on U.S. bid for 2016Houston's among five potential Olympics hosts in running

U.S. Olympic Committee officials said Monday that the field of five potential U.S. candidates to host the 2016 Olympics has been cut by at least one and that the short list of cities still in the running will be revealed Wednesday.

USOC spokesman Darryl Seibel said the five cities — Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and San Francisco — will be told Wednesday of the board's decision, which will be announced by USOC board chairman Peter Ueberroth at a 3:30 p.m. CDT Wednesday news conference in Denver.

The 11-member board last week discussed a technical report on the five cities.

At Wednesday's news conference, "we will go into more details about our plans and share some insights that we gained from the technical evaluations and from our international polling," said USOC spokesman Darryl Seibel.

Seibel would not say how many cities will be cut from the field. He said city officials will be informed of the board's decision Wednesday. He said the USOC still has not decided whether it will submit a candidate city for 2016.